The Geopolitical desk traced one chain this morning: Hormuz disruption lifts oil, oil feeds inflation, inflation reprices rates. Thursday at 4:00 p.m. shows the first link standing still while the last one moved. Brent traded at US$105.79, down 0.2% on the day, and the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell about 10 basis points to 5.09%.
The Yield Fell on a Day Oil Did Not Move
That is the largest one-day decline in the 10-year yield since at least August 17, the start of the data reviewed for this edition. It followed a hotter-than-expected U.S. consumer price report on Wednesday, when the 10-year slipped 3 basis points, and it came on a day when September producer prices were reported at 6.3% year over year against a 5.5% consensus, according to TheStreet.
Brent has risen 5.6% since October 7, from US$100.20, while the 10-year has fallen 19 basis points from 5.28%. Over that stretch oil climbed and yields declined, the reverse of the sequence the morning chain assumed. The move also came as memory-chip stocks sold off in Asia overnight, with the Kospi down 8%. Closing data does not settle which force moved the bond market. It does show that the oil price did not.
Brent has risen while the 10-year yield has fallen since October 7, and the gap opened further on Thursday.
The 10-year yield peaked at 5.31% on October 5 and has fallen 22 basis points since; Brent was US$100.20 on October 7 and US$105.79 at 4:00 p.m. Thursday. The October 15 yield is the last print available at publication.
The Front End Held While the Long End Rallied
The U.S. two-year yield fell 5 basis points to 4.75% while the 10-year fell 10, narrowing the gap between them from about 39 to about 34 basis points. Capital.com analyst Daniela Hathorn put a Federal Reserve hike on October 28 at roughly a coin flip, which keeps the short end anchored.
The Canadian read is still pending. Bank of Canada benchmark yields on October 14 were 3.21% at two years, 3.55% at five and 3.85% at ten, so the two-year already sat 96 basis points above the 2.25% overnight rate. The U.S. five-year fell 9 basis points today to 4.90%. The October 15 Canadian benchmarks, published tomorrow, will show whether the Canadian long end followed.
Gold Miners Did the Work, and the Morning Spread Narrowed
The TSX Composite rose 1.55% to 36,137.10, more than reversing the 1.11% decline on Wednesday. Gold futures gained 1.7% to US$4,193.70. The XGD gold miners ETF rose 4.0% to $54.96, 2.4 times the move in gold, while the XFN financials ETF gained 1.5% to $92.50 and the XEG energy ETF slipped 0.5% to $30.40.
The Market desk framed the morning from the Wednesday close: energy up 7.5% since August 31, gold miners down 13.1%, a spread of 20.5 points. After Thursday the figures are 6.9% and 9.6%, and the spread is 16.5 points. The TSX now sits 0.4% below its August 31 level, against 1.9% below it this morning.
Measured from the Tuesday close instead, the miners ETF is down 0.3% and the TSX is up 0.4% across two sessions. The Behavioural desk count of sessions with moves of 0.9% or more since September 1 now stands at 12 of 31. The next Canadian reading that can separate rates from oil is the October 19 inflation report, nine days before the October 28 decisions from the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve.
Indexed to August 31, the energy ETF is 6.9% higher and the gold miners ETF 9.6% lower, a spread that was 4 points wider at Wednesday close.
All three series are daily closes indexed to August 31, 2026, with Thursday at 4:00 p.m. ET. The XGD close of 86.9 on Wednesday is the low of the period.